scholarly journals Economic Downturns and Land-Use Change: A Spatial Analysis of Urban Transformations in Rome (Italy) Using a Geographically Weighted Principal Component Analysis

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (20) ◽  
pp. 11293
Author(s):  
Antonio Tomao ◽  
Walter Mattioli ◽  
David Fanfani ◽  
Carlotta Ferrara ◽  
Giovanni Quaranta ◽  
...  

Globally, processes that drive urbanization have mostly evolved within economic downturns. Economic crises have been more severe and frequent, particularly in the Mediterranean region. However, studies on the recession effects on urbanization are limited. The present study explores possible differences in spatial direction and intensity of land-use change trajectories at two time intervals (2006–2012, 2012–2018) using high-resolution Copernicus Land Urban Atlas images in the Rome metropolitan area. To this aim, a landscape ecology classical approach based on land-use metric analysis combined with a multivariate spatial analysis has been carried out. Results have identified different land-use change patterns during expansion and recession. “Greening”, defined as the conversion of urban marginal areas into croplands and forests, increased during the recession. At the same time, the rate of urban expansion into rural areas decreased, thus indicating a beneficial effect of economic downturns in reducing urban sprawl.

Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 749
Author(s):  
Leonardo Bianchini ◽  
Gianluca Egidi ◽  
Ahmed Alhuseen ◽  
Adele Sateriano ◽  
Sirio Cividino ◽  
...  

The spatial mismatch between population growth and settlement expansion is at the base of current models of urban growth. Empirical evidence is increasingly required to inform planning measures promoting urban containment in the context of a stable (or declining) population. In these regards, per-capita indicators of land-use change can be adopted with the aim at evaluating long-term sustainability of urbanization processes. The present study assesses spatial variations in per-capita indicators of land-use change in Rome, Central Italy, at five years (1949, 1974, 1999, 2008, and 2016) with the final objective of quantifying the mismatch between urban expansion and population growth. Originally specialized in agricultural productions, Rome’s metropolitan area is a paradigmatic example of dispersed urban expansion in the Mediterranean basin. By considering multiple land-use dynamics, per-capita indicators of landscape change delineated three distinctive waves of growth corresponding with urbanization, suburbanization, and a more mixed stage with counter-urbanization and re-urbanization impulses. By reflecting different socioeconomic contexts on a local scale, urban fabric and forests were identified as the ‘winner’ classes, expanding homogeneously over time at the expense of cropland. Agricultural landscapes experienced a more heterogeneous trend with arable land and pastures declining systematically and more fragmented land classes (e.g., vineyards and olive groves) displaying stable (or slightly increasing) trends. The continuous reduction of per-capita surface area of cropland that’s supports a reduced production base, which is now insufficient to satisfy the rising demand for fresh food at the metropolitan scale, indicates the unsustainability of the current development in Rome and more generally in the whole Mediterranean basin, a region specialized traditionally in (proximity) agricultural productions.


Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 286
Author(s):  
Dingrao Feng ◽  
Wenkai Bao ◽  
Meichen Fu ◽  
Min Zhang ◽  
Yiyu Sun

Land use change plays a key role in terrestrial systems and drives the process of ecological pattern change. It is important to investigate the process of land use change, predict land use patterns, and reveal the characteristics of land use dynamics. In this study, we adopted the Markov model and future land use (FLUS) model to predict the future land use conditions in Xi’an city. Furthermore, we investigated the characteristics of land use change from a novel perspective, i.e., via establishment of a complex network model. This model captured the characteristics of the land use system during different periods. The results indicated that urban expansion and cropland loss played an important role in land use pattern change. The future gravity center of urban development moved along the opposite direction to that from 2000 to 2015 in Xi’an city. Although the rate of urban expansion declined in the future, urban expansion remained the primary driver of land use change. The primary urban development directions were east-southeast (ENE), north-northeast (NNE) and west-southwest (WSW) from 1990 to 2000, 2000 to 2015, and 2015 to 2030, respectively. In fact, cropland played a vital role in land use dynamics regarding all land use types, and the stability of the land use system decreased in the future. Our study provides future land use patterns and a novel perspective to better understand land use change.


2021 ◽  
pp. 345-356
Author(s):  
Gaiying Chen ◽  
Tomasz Noszczyk ◽  
Maria Nawieśniak-Caesar ◽  
Maria Pazdan ◽  
Józef Hernik

Geosciences ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 421 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elzbieta Bielecka

The paper aimed to express the cognitive and intellectual structure of research executed in the field of GIS-based land use change modeling. An exploration of the Web of Science database showed that research in GIS spatial analysis modeling for land use change began in the early 1990s and has continued since then, with a substantial growth in the 21st century. By science mapping methods, particularly co-coupling, co-citation, and citation, as well as bibliometric measures, like impact indices, this study distinguishes the most eminent authors, institutions, countries, and journals in GIS-based land use change modeling. The results showed that GIS-based analysis of land use change modeling is a multi- and interdisciplinary research topic, as reflected in the diversity of WoS research categories, the most productive journals, and the topics analyzed. The highest impact on the world sciences in the field have can be attributed to European Universities, particularly from The Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, and Great Britain. However, China and the United States published the highest number of research papers.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 885 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ustaoglu ◽  
Aydınoglu

. Population growth, economic development and rural-urban migration have caused rapid expansion of urban areas and metropolitan regions in Turkey. The structure of urban administration and planning has faced different socio-economic and political challenges, which have hindered the structured and planned development of cities and regions, resulting in an irregular and uneven development of these regions. We conducted detailed comparative analysis on spatio-temporal changes of the identified seven land-use/cover classes across different regions in Turkey with the use of Corine Land Cover (CLC) data of circa 1990, 2000, 2006 and 2012, integrated with Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques. Here we compared spatio-temporal changes of urban and non-urban land uses, which differ across regions and across different hierarchical levels of urban areas. Our findings have shown that peri-urban areas are growing more than rural areas, and even growing more than urban areas in some regions. A deeper look at regions located in different geographical zones pointed to substantial development disparities across western and eastern regions of Turkey. We also employed multiple regression models to explain any possible drivers of land-use change, regarding both urban and non-urban land uses. The results reveal that the three influencing factors-socio-economic characteristics, regional characteristics and location, and development constraints, facilitate land-use change. However, their impacts differ in different geographical locations, as well as with different hierarchical levels.


Urban Science ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nimi Dan-Jumbo ◽  
Marc Metzger ◽  
Andrew Clark

Cities in developing countries are urbanising at a rapid rate, resulting in substantial pressures on environmental systems. Among the main factors that lead to flooding, controlling land-use change offers the greatest scope for the management of risk. However, traditional analysis of a “from–to” change matrix is not adequate to provide information of all the land-use changes that occur in a watershed. In this study, an in-depth analysis of land-use change enabled us to quantify the bulk of the changes accumulating from swap changes in a tropical watershed. This study assessed the historical and future land-use/land-cover (LULC) dynamics in the River State region of the Niger Delta. Land-use classification and change detection analysis was conducted using multi-source (Landsat TM, ETM, polygon map, and hard copy) data of the study area for 1986, 1995, and 2003, and projected conditions in 2060. The key findings indicate that historical urbanisation was rapid; urban expansion could increase by 80% in 2060 due to planned urban development; and 95% of the conversions to urban land occurred chiefly at the expense of agricultural land. Urban land was dominated by net changes rather than swap changes, which in the future could amplify flood risk and have other severe implications for the watershed.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 628 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bhagawat Rimal ◽  
Sean Sloan ◽  
Hamidreza Keshtkar ◽  
Roshan Sharma ◽  
Sushila Rijal ◽  
...  

Globally, urbanization is increasing at an unprecedented rate at the cost of agricultural and forested lands in peri-urban areas fringing larger cities. Such land-cover change generally entails negative implications for societal and environmental sustainability, particularly in South Asia, where high demographic growth and poor land-use planning combine. Analyzing historical land-use change and predicting the future trends concerning urban expansion may support more effective land-use planning and sustainable outcomes. For Nepal’s Tarai region—a populous area experiencing land-use change due to urbanization and other factors—we draw on Landsat satellite imagery to analyze historical land-use change focusing on urban expansion during 1989–2016 and predict urban expansion by 2026 and 2036 using artificial neural network (ANN) and Markov chain (MC) spatial models based on historical trends. Urban cover quadrupled since 1989, expanding by 256 km2 (460%), largely as small scattered settlements. This expansion was almost entirely at the expense of agricultural conversion (249 km2). After 2016, urban expansion is predicted to increase linearly by a further 199 km2 by 2026 and by another 165 km2 by 2036, almost all at the expense of agricultural cover. Such unplanned loss of prime agricultural lands in Nepal’s fertile Tarai region is of serious concern for food-insecure countries like Nepal.


2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 611-622 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alenka FIKFAK ◽  
Velibor SPALEVIC ◽  
Saja KOSANOVIC ◽  
Svetislav G. POPOVIC ◽  
Mladen DJUROVIC ◽  
...  

Land development analyses play a fundamental role in understanding how land use change shapes the land, depending on continuously changing social, economic, and environmental factors that reflect the interests in space. It is especially important to follow land use changes in rural areas due to their role in food security, environmental hazards, cultural landscape preservation, etc. Continuous analyses and monitoring of land use changes allow for the identification and prevention of negative trends in land use (over intensification, land fragmentation, etc.) that might affect biodiversity, change physical and chemical properties of soil, causing soil degradation, change the spatial balance, stability and natural equilibrium in the rural area. The use of the cross-tabulation matrix methodology was suggested for land use change analyses. The methodology, when the cross-tabulation matrix elements are correctly interpreted, allows us to gain as much insight as possible in the process of land use change. This approach enabled a detailed analysis of vineyards in Goriška brda, Slovenia. It was found that the existing methodology fails to analyse the location of change. For this reason, additional analyses of spatial distribution of change and of the locations where changes in space occur were suggested. The study demonstrated that the land use category of vineyards changes systematically, although seemingly randomly. By comparing land use categories over several time periods, the study determined that the size and speed of change varied across different time intervals. The identified land use changes were assessed in the context of their high pressure on agricultural land. The results of the analyses showed different trends shaping the typical agrarian landscape in Goriška brda.


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